I wrote about the big Carnaval parade at the Sambódromo here. Below are descriptions of two neighborhood "bloco" parades.
Banda de Ipanema (February 26, 2011)
You may remember me writing about Banda de Ipanema before. They held their parade two weeks after the band's rehearsal. Both events attracted a crowd.
There were plenty of street vendors at the parade, usually carrying small wooden display trays, like the one pictured below. The front of this one was decorated with the message: "Jesus Halls," or maybe that's supposed to be "Jesus ♥ Halls." I'm not quite sure.
No Carnaval parade would be complete without a drag queen or two. This couple let me take their picture. I couldn't even get close to most of the queens and other performers that day; they were all surrounded by tourists and television reporters, too.
I heard that the parade of Banda de Ipanema went late into the night. This was one of the few parades where there were simply too many people for my liking. The beach was only a block away, so after a couple hours, I said good-bye to the parade and hello to the ocean. I love living on the coast!
Dois pra lá, Dois pra cá (March 5, 2011)
Dois pra lá, dois pra cá can be roughly translated as "two steps up, two steps back." This "bloco" was founded in 1991 by the dance company, Carlinhos de Jesus. The parade started in front of the Casa de Dança (House of Dance) of Carlinhos de Jesus in Botafogo and marched toward Copacabana Beach. While I'm not very familiar with Copacabana or Botafogo yet, I had a rough idea of the geographical locations. What I didn't realize, is that there is a tunnel that connects Botafogo to Copacabana. Surely they wouldn't send a crowd of boisterous, half-drunk people through the tunnel, and surely not one that was still open to traffic ... ?
I was wrong. You can see the tunnel above. Half the tunnel was open to traffic and the other half was closed for the parade. I can only think of one other time I've been inside a tunnel and not in a car (Critical Mass bike ride Pittsburgh) and that tunnel was a whole lot shorter than this one! This time, I seemed to be the only person concerned, though. "It's only a tunnel." "Yes, a dark one with fast cars very, very close ..." In any case, people sang all the way through. (Turn your sound down before listening to the video below.)
The parade ended shortly after we exited the tunnel and even though we were wet and half-deaf from the blaring sound system, we still all had a fabulous time.
